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Comment by smackay | Hacker News Reader

Craig Murray, friend of Julian Assange, was just released from a Scottish prison for the crime of jigsaw identification of some of the accusers in the trial of former First Minister, Alex Salmond despite the fact that many journalists from mainstream media had published information that allowed their readers to identify some of the accusers explicitly.

So it's not just a problem of dictatorships in second or third world countries. But then again, maybe it is.

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

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Well a journalist -a US citizen- (Jamal Khashoggi) was killed in a foreign (Saudi) embassy; evidence (including, Audio evidence) was presented of the killing and was found to be credible, CIA concluded that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman ordered the killing.... then.... what happened? Nothing.

In a world where you can kill a US journalist so brazenly without any repercussions, would you be surprised journalists being jailed for $reasons ?

And Obama has killed and droned US citizens who were journalists and even his US citizen children with a great Orwellian response by the White House spokesman.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/how-tea...

It doesn't say anything about them being journalists, but instead that the guy was an 'operational' al-Qaeda target, and his kid an innocent victim. How is this an attack on free press?

Not to notpick, but while Khashoggi was a US resident, he was not a US citizen.

That's not a nitpick, it's a very important point. It doesn't justify the killing in any way, but it does shed some light on why the US response was what it was.

Unless there was some other Jamal Khashoggi killed in a Saudi embassy, he was not a US citizen. Judging by the Tim Kaine's letter [1], he was not even a permanent resident of the US but a temporary worker on O-1 visa.

1. https://www.kaine.senate.gov/press-releases/connolly-kaine-l...

A “US journalist” whose grandfather was the personal physician to the house of Saudi’s founder, whose billionaire arms dealing uncle was involved in Iran Contra, whose first cousin was in that car with Princess Diana…

He was hilariously Saudi!

A “US journalist” who was a friend of Bin Laden, and worked with many Saudi royal family members from head of Intelligence Agency, Al Faisal to billionaire Al Waleed Bin Tallal "He also served with the Saudi Arabian Intelligence Agency, and possibly worked with the United States, during the Soviet invasion in Afghanistan." Wikipedia https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/from-travels-with-bin-l...

How is that relevant?

Because most people genuinely aren’t aware of this, and labor under the impression a US citizen/journalist was randomly butchered by the powers of evil.

An immensely wealthy, heavily connected Saudi political actor got taken out by a new Saudi ruler asserting himself.

I am personally not okay with foreign nobles attempting to hide behind the same label as eg Assange, it’s fucking absurd.

Hilarious is a strange adjective to use. So to you a person is defined largely by their extended family.

His billionaire uncle Adnan also sold a yacht to Donald Trump.

Killing Khashoggi definitely cooled the US's relationship with Saudi Arabia - a relationship they are critically reliant upon.

I would be surprised if bin Salman didn't regret his decision.

Sadly looking at the map in the OP, the UK is reported as 0 journalists imprisoned.

Between Julian Assange and Craig Murray that seems low.

Usual problem - how do you define a journalist and how do you say whether they've been jailed for being a journalist or not.

This is the CPJ definition:

"CPJ defines journalists as people who cover the news or comment on public affairs in any media, including print, photographs, radio, television, and online."

I'd say that both Murray and Assange legitimately fit into this definition.

Unfortunately in the UK you're only considered a "journalist" if you can join the cosy boys club that is the NUJ, which is a bit like saying you're not a real train driver unless you're a member of ASLEF which is clearly nonsense.

Professional organizations are extremely effective gatekeeping mechanisms.

> people who ... comment on public affairs in any media

I mean... I do that, but I'm clearly not a journalist.

I guess if our fact-focused essays/comments about the issues of the day sufficiently annoy someone powerful, enough to get thrown in prison, then we're a journalist. At least the powerful, annoyed person thinks so. Something to think about while we rot away in solitary.

Don't we all comment on public affairs online?

Yeah this is the crux of the problem. As the definition of journalist becomes so broad that everyone falls into this category so to does the number of journalists going to prison.

The counter is that if there is too strict a definition of journalism - you put to many controls on the group. It almost feels like you should need some kind of standard to qualify as a journalist (again that has issues with it as well).

It's fraught either way but I don't think I am alone here when I say a lot of journalists around the world don't really qualify as journalists and are actually activists under guise (both on the right and on the left).

> The counter is that if there is too strict a definition of journalism - you put to many controls on the group.

How so? I don't think 'journalist' is any kind of privileged or protected group - so you don't lose anything by not being a journalist do you?

To the point that governments shouldn't be putting anyone in jail just for revealing their activity, there's a truth to that. But so far as we can use metrics like "journalists in jail" as a proxy for despotism, there's a loss when despots are hand-picking the journalists.

As to privilege and protection, that depends a lot on regional laws.

Yeah. I would make a simple common-sense addition, that this commenting is their primary source of income.

I’m at a point where I’m willing to throw the word away. It’s just too imprecise.

I know what a reporter is, and I know what a columnist is. I know what an editor is, and I know what an editorial stance is. I know what it means for people to do these things professionally as their vocation. “Journalism” might still have some life left in it, but if somebody told me they were a journalist, my follow up question would still be “what do you do?”.

How to define a journalist is a tough problem I can't easily solve, but I'd be inclined to say that once you do, any of them being in jail for any reason should count. The risk of overcounting the few journalists who might genuinely commit crimes unrelated to their journalism seems lower than the risk of undercounting journalists who were in reality jailed because of their journalism, but were officially for invented crimes.

"Journalism" was a temporary artifact of the transition from industrial to technological economy. There was a brief time when communicating broadly was hard and required capital. Now, anyone can do it.

It's important to remember how vulgar early (and pre) 20th century journalism was. Largely opinion, hearsay and sensationalism.

Later, journalism consolidated and developed standards to sell itself. Once technology put it in everyone's hands, it became so cheap that standards could no longer be a moat. We're back to vulgarity. I don't think there is any significant difference in the market between someone who went to the Columbia School of Journalism and a blogger.

"It's important to remember how vulgar early (and pre) 20th century journalism was. Largely opinion, hearsay and sensationalism."

Luckily today, that drastically improved.

It's a bit like "cyclist": someone currently engaging in an act of journalism, like a cyclist is someone riding a bike.

Are you suggesting a (jailed journalist) / (total journalists in the country) ratio to determine the level of control that the government is trying to exert?

I'd argue the second part is unnecessary. If country A jails more (percentage) journalists than country B, you know that either country A is trying to control them, or that country A has more criminal journalists. At least that gives you another lead to look into.

If you deliver information to the public, that the public needs to know to make informed decisions your a journalist.

Yes, consider it a role and not a guild.

What's crazy about his case is that he was sentenced to more time than somebody who just outright named an accuser on twitter.

Leonna Dorrian should be disbarred. What she did was a blatant abuse of her power.

Yeah that judgement was crazy. It has been spun as being about protecting the identity of victims of sexual offences, but I don't believe that for a moment because the judgement contained a detailed account of how you could find the accusers from Murray's articles. So I personally had no idea who they were when I read his article originally, but it was easy to figure out from the judgement. If what they cared about was protecting the identities, the judgement would never have been written that way.

IIRC the argument was that by "identifying" the supposed victims he "could have" prejudiced the trial.

The UK has exceptionally strict laws surrounding interference with an ongoing trial. It's much easier to get somebody on that than it is most crimes if you're motivated.

The judge seems to have been lashing out after failing to convict Alex Salmond and reading the blog posts which lampooned her. They didn't come after him while the trial was in progress.

Tommy Robinson was also convicted on similar charges of attempting to prejudice a trial.

Not only this. Before the criminal trial there were no restrictions on reporting the identity of the accusers. Murray had even pointed this out in his affidavit to the court that he had chosen not to though it would have been quite legitimate to do so at that time.

I'm not surprised. I haven't had much faith in the system protecting identities since the time I had to move for witness protection only to find my new address revealed to all parties in the summons to the hearing.

I'm English, and pretty far from Murray politically, but from what I've read in other places as well the Scottish Government, the SNP, and the Scottish judiciary seem very close - probably too close.

The Scottish Government is the most useless, unnecessary body imaginable. The only office less important then that of the First Minister must be the Vice President in the US. It's not surprising that petty officials will abuse their power as much as they can.

The fundamental problem is that there is no separation of powers between the government and the judiciary as you might find in most (all?) modern democracies. The Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service (COPFS) acts as the governments lawyers and the prosecution service. Most of the accusers in the trial of Alex Salmond, for which he was acquitted on all charges, are close associates of the leadership of the Scottish National Party which are currently in power in the devolved parliament. The risks are clear and obvious.

I'm a bit confused by this statement about separation of powers. The function of a prosecutor is not a judicial function in the context of an adversarial legal system such as the common law.

True, but I think choosing which cases to prosecute (or not prosecute) based on political expediency rather than weight of evidence could be the danger here.

The notion that (theoretically independent in either case) prosecutors who are part of the judicial branch rather than the executive branch are less likely to be influenced by political considerations is worth examining. I have real doubts it is valid.

Moreover, how is this really different from the CPS in the rest of the UK?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Prosecution_Service

"The Attorney General for England and Wales superintends the CPS's work and answers for it in Parliament, although the Attorney General has no influence over the conduct of prosecutions, except when national security is an issue or for a small number of offences that require the Attorney General's permission to prosecute."

So yeah, it's much more arms-length than Scotland.

Isn’t that one of the definitions of dictatorships in other non-white countries according to neocon NGO/CIA/white savior class. The separation of powers that may exist de jure but no de facto when it comes to the power structure like in the US.

Wait, it's doxxing a witness a bad thing?

This seems like a legitimate crime.

Accusers, who in Scotland are afforded legal protection from being named in the press in cases of sexual assault.

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